Someone to Follow You

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                Acts 1:15 – 22

Someone to Follow Youby Robert T. Cooper

In Terry Brooks’ novel, Bloodfire Quest, an ancient person has selected one of the heroines for a quest. Brooks has this ancient to say, “The elders of a species always measure the fitness of the young to take their place.”

I don’t know how old you are, but I am now in my sixties. As my life has gone by I have worked in lots of places and volunteered in lots of places. It has sometimes been my concern as to who could take over when the time came for me to leave. It has sometimes been my concern as to who could simply cover if I had to be out for whatever reason. My philosophy was that things should be able to continue without me as with me.

I have spent my life investing in others, discipling others. It has always been an honor when some person would permit me to invest in his or her life. Now as I get older, I am concerned with leaving a legacy of even more dedicated followers of Christ. I don’t simply want someone to replace me; I want to leave a whole host of people to carry on where I eventually leave off.

The time came quickly and unexpectedly when the Apostles felt the need to replace Judas Iscariot, who had committed suicide. They wouldn’t continue to add Apostles throughout time. It was done just this once. But there has been a need for the church to continually have leadership.

The Apostles looked around to see who was prepared to step into the gap. They proposed two people who fit the bill, but one gets the idea there were even more that might have met all the qualifications. Jesus had done well anticipating the need and seeing that there were people prepared. Of course, the Lord made the final choice.

The point for us is that we ought to anticipate the need for additional leaders when we pass from the scene. We ought to be seeing that there are people prepared.

In the comments, please share whether you are investing in the lives of those who might possibly replace you, if necessary. What are you doing to prepare them?

Just Sort of Slips Them in There

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                        Acts 1:14

Just Sort of Slips Them in There

by Robert T. Cooper

 

I had been a member of this Glee Club in college. Now I was a graduate, attending one of their concerts in Dallas. There was a fellow still in that choir who had been in the choir at the same time I was. When the concert ended, this fellow made a beeline for me. He wanted to let me know that he had in the intervening time placed his faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. My friend is still walking with Christ today. Sometimes we “accidentally” discover that someone has become a fellow believer in Christ.

 

Acts 1:14 mentions some people who were in this 24/7 prayer meeting during the days between the Ascension and Pentecost. We aren’t surprised to find the Apostles there. We aren’t surprised to find Mary, the mother of Jesus, there. It isn’t even particularly surprising to find “the women” there. (This was a substantial group of women who traveled around with Jesus and His disciples during the 3½ year ministry of Jesus. They frequently were the source for funding for the ministry.)

 

But we are surprised to discover that Jesus’ four brothers were part of the prayer meeting. The last we had heard of these brothers, they had been taunting Jesus about how He behaved as a public figure, taunting because they were not believers in Jesus or in His mission. In fact, at the crucifixion, Jesus gave a verbal will as He hung on the cross. He gave the care of His mother to John, the youngest of the Apostles, rather than to any of His brothers. Yet here, not two months later, the four brothers are with the Apostles at the prayer meeting.

 

What had happened? How had they turned from mockers into disciples? Frankly, the Bible does not tell us. It is a mystery, and will remain so until we see them and can ask them for ourselves. Yet they were converted. And when Luke mentions they were participants in the prayer meeting, he doesn’t make a big deal of it. He just sort of slips them in there. Moreover, two of those brothers ended up writing books of the New Testament. One of those brothers ended up being the Senior Pastor of the Church at Jerusalem, pastor of the Twelve Apostles.

 

It is not an uncommon thing. The person it never occurred to you would eventually come to faith in Christ does become a believer. In fact, God seems to enjoy bringing salvation to unlikely candidates. So don’t give up on people. Perhaps all won’t be converted, but you never know. Only God knows.

 

In the Comments section, we’d love to hear any stories you may have of someone who came to faith in Christ, someone He just sort of slipped in there.